Legislators enter a bilingual-ed time warp

Voters may be asked to gut 1998's Proposition 227, despite its successes

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, kindergarten teacher Thao Tran teachers kindergartners in a dual immersion language class at White Center Heights Elementary School in Seattle. In a handful of schools across the country, kindergartners aren’t being taught just in English, but also in Vietnamese. The move to add Vietnamese to the growing list of languages featured in dual immersion education classes comes as the American born children of Vietnamese immigrants are striving to preserve their family’s heritage for the next generation. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
The Associated Press

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, kindergarten teacher Thao Tran teachers kindergartners in a dual immersion language class at White Center Heights Elementary School in Seattle. In a handful of schools across the country, kindergartners aren’t being taught just in English, but also in Vietnamese. The move to add Vietnamese to the growing list of languages featured in dual immersion education classes comes as the American born children of Vietnamese immigrants are striving to preserve their family’s heritage for the next generation. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

SACRAMENTO  Listening to Tuesday’s debate on the state Senate floor over an attempt to revive “bilingual education,” I was left wondering whether legislators simply have short memories — or whether the Capitol exists in some parallel universe.

The new initiative would end the English-immersion requirement and mainly allow local school districts to choose the instruction method they prefer after consulting with experts and holding community outreach programs.

People still heatedly argue about 1978’s property-tax-limiting Proposition 13. But I always figured that 1998’s Proposition 227 had to be right behind it in terms of collective memories given the impact it has had on public education and on the debate over immigration and assimilation.

Lara was 23 years old when Californian voters nixed this controversial bilingual-educational technique where students are taught in both languages. He was old enough to know what the debate was really about and to see the studies that emerged following bilingual-education’s demise.

But on Tuesday Lara argued that the resulting law that mandates English immersion is “linguistic tyranny” – and that it is keeping all California students from learning myriad languages. “Ultimately, this bill will enable Californians to compete with the leading economies such as Scandinavia, Europe and Asia, where they are deliberately cultivating a multilingual work force,” Lara argued.

Since when did the debate over Proposition 227 turn into a debate about competing with Norway? There are many ways to boost foreign-language training in California schools. Learning another language is great, but this is about the best way to teach English and bilingual education isn't it.

“Two years after Californians voted to end bilingual education and force a million Spanish-speaking students to immerse themselves in English as if it were a cold bath, those students are improving in reading and other subjects at often striking rates,” reported the New York Times in August 2000. The Times quoted a one-time bilingual-ed advocate, former Oceanside Unified School District Superintendent Ken Noonan, who changed his mind after the test scores came in.

In an interview on Wednesday, Noonan said he remains convinced that “the sooner you put kids into English, the better it is for them.” He points to a study proving the success of Proposition 227, although he wasn’t surprised by the Senate vote: “It has nothing to do with educating kids. These are ideologues who can’t let go.”

Yet even the GOP's Senate Leader Bob Huff of Diamond Bar supported Lara by arguing that SB 1174 is about boosting local control. Proposition 227 sponsor Ron Unz wrote in a column recently that he isn’t surprised that some Republicans are OK with bilingual-education’s return given that, at the time, the initiative was opposed by the political establishment, Democrats and Republicans.

At least Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Solana Beach, tried to focus the debate where it belonged. “My fear is those children ... won’t end up being fluent in English. ... I just don’t think it’s worth the risk at a time when we have a high-school dropout rate which is off the charts,” he said on the Senate floor.

“The entire situation underscores the total ignorance and insularity of most of the California legislators, who’ll probably get a huge ‘surprise’ if they do put the measure on the ballot, once the voters in 2016 actually discover what they’ve done,” Unz argued, in an email. “Our useless legislators are just living in their own private universe.”